The Babbelers with their Thangas Vain

The Tower of Babel (RFW 012.25–012.38)

In the previous paragraph of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, Edgar Quinet’s eloquent expression of Giambattista Vico’s cyclical view of human history was presented in an Irish setting. Where Quinet wrote of Pliny and Columella, of Gaul, Illyria and Numantia, Joyce wrote of Éber and Éremón, of Danes, Ostmen and Fir Bolg, of Ballymun, Goatstown, Rush and Knockmaroon.

The present paragraph is essentially a variation on the same theme. Once again we are presented with a cyclical view of Irish history, a cycle divided into four quadrants—just like Finnegans Wake itself. Joyce here partitions Irish history into four epochs, each characterized by its own language:

First-Draft Version

This fourfold cycle, which is immediately repeated, was present in the first draft. Note how it is followed by a passage concerning the flowers of the field, which echoes Quinet’s flowers on the ancient battlefields:

The babbling of tongues have been & have gone, thigging thugs were and houhynam songtoms were & gumly norgers were & pollyfool francees; men have thawed, clerks have surssurummed, the blond has sought of the brune: Else kiss thou may?: and the duncle have countered to the hellish fellows: Who ails tongue coddo?: & they fell upon one another & themselves they fell: yet still all Floras of the field to their fauns say only: Cull me I am wilt to thee, and: Pluck me ere I blush. Well, may they wilt, marry, and profusedly blush, be troth! For that saying is as old as the howths, wherever you have a whale in a whillbarrow (isn’t it the truath I’m tallen ye?) you’ll have fins & flippers to shimmy & shake. (Hayman 54)

The main change that occurred between the first and final drafts was the addition of an extra sentence at the end, which changes the subject and leads straight into the next section, where we are introduced to one of the book’s main characters, HCE’s elderly Manservant, who is generally known as Sackerson or Ole Joe, and represented by the siglum S.

Confusion of the Tongues

The opening phrase of this paragraph alludes to the Confusion of the Tongues at the Tower of Babel, which was followed by the Dispersal of the Nations (Genesis 11:1-9). Vico discusses this event in The New Science, placing it in the Year of the World 1856:

Giambattista Vico

§ 62 The confusion of tongues came about in a miraculous way so that on the instant many different languages were formed. The Fathers will have it that through this confusion of tongues the purity of the sacred antediluvian language was gradually lost. This should be understood as referring to the languages of the Eastern peoples among whom Shem propagated the human race. It must have been otherwise in the case of the nations of all the rest of the world; for the races of Ham and Japheth were destined to be scattered through the great forest of this earth in a savage migration of two hundred years. Wandering and alone, they were to bring forth their children, with a savage education, destitute of any human custom and deprived of any human speech, and so in a state of wild animals. It was necessary that just so much time should pass before the earth, having at last dried off from the wetness of the universal flood, could send off dry exhalations of the sort wherein lightning could be generated, which stunned and terrified men into abandoning themselves to the false religions of so many Joves that Varro was able to count forty of them, and the Egyptians claimed their Jove Ammon to be the oldest of all. They turned to a kind of divination which consisted in divining the future from the thunder and lightning and from the flights of eagles which they held to be birds of Jove. But among the Easterners there was born a more refined divination from the observation of the movements of the planets and the aspects of the stars. Thus Zoroaster is honored as the first wise man among the gentiles. Bochart gives him the title “contemplator of the stars.” Just as the first vulgar wisdom was born among the Easterners, so also among them arose the first monarchy, that of Assyria. (Vico 34-35)

Finnegans Wake ends with a reënactment of the Biblical Deluge. On the opening pages of the book, there are numerous references to the sodden ground, which is still not dry. It makes sense, then, that the Confusion of the Tongues and the Dispersal of the Nations should come next.

The following phrases contain specimens of the languages associated with the four phases of ancient Irish history.

thigging thugs These two words represent the Irish: Tuigeann tú?, You understand?
houhnhymn songtoms This phrase represents the monks of Christian Ireland singing their hymns. The phrase can be read as Latin: hymnum sanctum, sacred hymn (accusative case). In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, the houyhnhnms were intelligent horselike creatures. Is this a reference to the scholarly aspect of the early Christian period, when Ireland was the Land of Saints and Scholars?
comely norgels This phrase represents the Norsemen, or Vikings. Danish: Norge, Norway.
Pollyfool Fiansees This represents the Anglo-Norman invaders of 1169, who spoke French: Parlez-vous Français, Do you speak French? They eventually integrated themselves so well into the native population that they came to be described as M ore Irish than the Irish T hemselves. The allusion to fiancées may reflect their willingness to intermarry with the native population. Their original leader, Strongbow (Richard de Clare, the 2nd Earl of Pembroke) set the trend by marrying Aoife, the daughter of Diarmait Mac Murchada, the King of Leinster, who first brought the Normans to Ireland.

The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife

A Second Cycle

To emphasize the cyclical nature of history, Joyce then repeats the same pattern:

Men have thawed Irish: Tá, Yes.
clerks have surssurhummed Latin: clericus, cleric, priest : susurrare, to whisper : hymnire, to sing hymns.
the blond has sought of the brune: Elsekiss thou may, mean kerry piggy This refers to two important factions of Norsemen: the Finngall, or White-Haired Foreigners, and the Dubhgall, or Black-Haired Foreigners. The phrase in italics can be read as Danish: Elsker du mig, min kaere pige? Do you love me, my dear?
And the duncledames have countered with the hellish fellows: Who ails tongue coddeau, aspace of dumbillsilly The Anglo-Normans, speaking French: Où est ton cadeau, espèce d’imbécile, Where is your gift, you imbecile?. Note that dunkel and hell are German for dark and bright. This not only echoes the blond and brune of the Norsemen, it also adds a Germanic element to the Normans, who were themselves descended from Norsemen.

The Rock of Cashel

Viconian Rituals

According to Vico, the three main phases of human history (Theocracy, Aristocracy and Democracy) are each characterized by a ritual: Birth, Marriage, and the Burial of the Dead. These three customs are also featured in this paragraph:

Marriage: fiansees (fiancées), marry, be troth, among others.
Burial of the Dead: Lave a whale a while in a whillbarrow, which describes the dead HCE lying in his barrow, but only for a while. On the previous page, the supine HCE was compared to a beached whale: a groot hwide Whallfisk which lay in a Runnel (RFW 011.21-21)
Birth (or Rebirth): to have fins and flippers that shimmy and shake. The dead whale of HCE comes back to life. Note that this phrase is preceded by a line from the ballad Finnegan’s Wake, and is followed by a reference to Tim, the hero of that ballad. I have no idea what Joyce means by Tim Timmycan timped hir, tampting Tam. It sounds like Tim Finnegan tempted her, tempting Tim? It has the same rhythm as the opening line of the ballad: Tim Finnegan lived in Walker Street.

Sackerson

The final sentence in this paragraph changes the subject from the Viconian Cycle to Sackerson, or Ole Joe, HCE’s elderly manservant, who is here depicted as a parasitical flea hopping about on HCE’s deathbed. We shall learn a lot more about this mysterious creature in the following paragraphs. For the moment, I will merely point out that from an early point in the composition of Finnegans Wake, Joyce identified S with the serpent in the Garden of Eden, who tempts Eve—which perhaps explains the timped hir, tampting Tam that immediately precedes the appearance of the flea (McHugh 122-126).

HCE is associated with earwigs, so it is only natural that Sackerson too should be described as an insect. In the Viconian Cycle, when HCE is overthrown by the Oedipal Figure, he becomes Sackerson, while the Oedipal Figure takes his place as the new HCE. So Sackerson is another aspect of Tim Finnegan.

And that’s as good a place as any to beach the bark of our tale.

References

David Hayman, A First-Draft Version of Finnegans Wake, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas (1963)
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, Faber & Faber Limited, London (1939, 1949)
James Joyce, James Joyce: The Complete Works, Pynch (editor), Online (2013)
Roland McHugh, The Sigla of Finnegans Wake, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas (1976)
Edgar Quinet, Introduction à La Philosophie de l’Histoire de l’Humanité, Œuvres Complètes de Edgar Quinet, Volume 2, Librairie Germer-Baillière et Compagnie, Paris (1876)
Danis Rose, John O’Hanlon, The Restored Finnegans Wake, Penguin Classics, London (2012)
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume 8, Edited by G Ravenscroft Dennis, George Bell & Sons, London (1905)
Giambattista Vico, Goddard Bergin (translator), Max Harold Fisch (translator), The New Science of Giambattista Vico, Third Edition (1744), Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York (1948)

Image Credits

The Tower of Babel: Pieter Bruegel the Elder (artist), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Public Domain
Giambattista Vico: Francesco Solimena (artist), Public Domain
The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife: Daniel Maclise (artist), National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Public Domain

Finnegans Wake - A Prescriptive Guide

27 August 2022